Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Age aint nothing but a number?

So, I’ve been chatting with my colleague this afternoon and it inspired me for my topic of today – age. Why is it that people of the same age can be so different – in personality, looks, attitude?

I cited a number of examples – my 67 year old Auntie who looks like she’s in her 50s and acts like she’s in her 30s, one set of grandparents who were very active and liked to go out lots and the other who were more traditional grandparents and sat indoors doing traditional ‘old people’ activities. I also have friends who even when we were at school acted more like middle-aged women than teenagers.

I’ve also been thinking about age lately as I don’t seem to be able to accept that I’m getting old, of course at 28 I’m not an OAP or anything I know. However, when it dawned on me recently that most of my close friends turn 30 this year I really felt quite freaked out by it all. When I was at school and saw people of 30 they seemed so grown up and had everything in life – we’re still into going out drinking and making fools of ourselves, not all of us have our own property and aren’t quite there yet with our careers. Even now if I hear someone is pregnant my initial thought is the same as when I found out about teen Mum’s at school/college! How are they going to cope, what did their Mum say??

But then you get those people that are settled and are perhaps a bit younger than you – good career, nice house, married, got kids and you start to doubt yourself. Where did I go wrong? Why am I not at that place yet?

I keep going back and forth in my thoughts – one minute I envy those around me who seem to have it all, then the next I feel too young to be approaching 30 and want to just be young and have fun. My poor boyfriend doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. Just before we went to Isle of Wight I nagged the poor boy for being too boring and that we needed to go out more and then last night watching Children’s Hospital and looking at footage of his niece and nephew on his phone I declared I wanted a baby!

What exactly makes some of us reach the age of 80 and still be in the gym and out there enjoying life? Image popping into my head is a guy we fondly know as Disco Dave (not quite sure how old he is) who can often be seen in local pubs dancing the night away to cover bands. Or those of us who even when we’re young decide all that clubbing and boozing lark is not for us, we’re more comfy sitting on the sofa with a nice cuppa and some biscuits, no rock climbing or abseiling for us thank you very much.

Why do some of us love bingo over a boogie and cross stitch over the cross trainer?

Of late I’ve been joking about taking my niece out when she’s grown up for nights out on the town, we’re looking at I guess about 14 years or so before that happens – I’ll then be 42-43...Is that too old to be out on the tiles and will I just be an embarrassment to her rather than a fun party animal companion? When do I need to start worrying about what I wear? Should I have started doing that already??

When at school you have it all planned out don’t you? My plan was married by 25, kid by 28, living in a nice big house, hadn’t really thought about what job I was doing, I suspect though it would’ve been journalism related... Hm so here I am about to change jobs, I do work in the media so it’s close, I have a boyfriend of nearly 6 years but I’m not engaged/married, I definitely don’t have a child and I own a one bedroom flat. Okay not a bad achievement granted, but not quite the grand plan I’d dreamed up.

Should we judge ourselves and work by these deadlines though, or is it okay to just get on with life and take it as it comes? They say as you get old you gradually start to become young again – obviously I’m referring to the not too pleasant state you get when very old and go back to being like a baby. But isn’t it funny how whatever age we are we always want to be younger or older. When you’re young you want to be old enough to get served for booze/fags, I can remember being in infant school and wanting to be old enough to be in junior school so I could pour my own water in the assembly hall at lunch, then once you get past 21 you start to wish you could stay around that age. I’ve found 25+ is the turning point when you don’t want to get any older, I’ll just stay here please and have enough experience in life to know what I’m doing but still be young enough to go out and wear the latest fashions.

Oh well, looks like I’m three years late to make that wish, so begins the downward slide into thirtydoom and trying to become a proper grown up. After all I’m going to have to be extremely mature minded when I decide what fancy dress costume to wear to my friends’ 30th bouncy castle parties.